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arXiv:quant-ph/0109136

Exact results for accepting probabilities of quantum automata

Andris Ambainis, Arnolds Ķikusts

Published Sep 26, 2001• 0 citations
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Abstract

One of the properties of Kondacs-Watrous model of quantum finite automata (QFA) is that the probability of the correct answer for a QFA cannot be amplified arbitrarily. In this paper, we determine the maximum probabilities achieved by QFAs for several languages. In particular, we show that any language that is not recognized by an RFA (reversible finite automaton) can be recognized by a QFA with probability at most 0.7726...

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/0109136

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One of the properties of Kondacs-Watrous model of quantum finite automata (QFA) is that the probability of the correct answer for a QFA cannot be amplified arbitrarily. In this paper, we determine the maximum probabilities achieved by QFAs for several languages. In particular, we show that any language that is not recognized by an RFA (reversible finite automaton) can be recognized by a QFA with probability at most 0.7726...
In this note, we generalize the results of arXiv:0901.2703v1 We show that all one-way quantum finite automaton (QFA) models that are at least as general as Kondacs-Watrous QFA's are equivalent in power to classical probabilistic finite automata in this setting. Unlike their probabilistic counterparts, allowing the tape head to stay put for some steps during its traversal of the input does enlarge the class of languages recognized by such QFA's with unbounded error. (Note that, the proof of Theorem 1 in the abstract was presented in the previous version (arXiv:0901.2703v1).)
We study 1-way quantum finite automata (QFAs). First, we compare them with their classical counterparts. We show that, if an automaton is required to give the correct answer with a large probability (greater than 7/9), then any 1-way QFAs can be simulated by a 1-way reversible automaton. However, quantum automata giving the correct answer with smaller probabilities are more powerful than reversible automata. Second, we show that 1-way QFAs can be very space-efficient. We construct a 1-way QFA that is exponentially smaller than any equivalent classical (even randomized) finite automaton. We think that this construction may be useful for design of other space-efficient quantum algorithms. Third, we consider several generalizations of 1-way QFAs. Here, our goal is to find a model which is more powerful than 1-way QFAs keeping the quantum part as simple as possible.
1-way multihead quantum finite state automata (1QFA(k)) can be thought of modified version of 1-way quantum finite state automata (1QFA) and k-letter quantum finite state automata (k-letter QFA) respectively. It has been shown by Moore and Crutchfield as well as Konadacs and Watrous that 1QFA can’t accept all regular language. In this paper, we show different language recognizing capabilities of our model 1-way multihead QFAs. New results presented in this paper are the following ones: 1) We show that newly introduced 1-way 2-head quantum finite state automaton (1QFA(2)) structure can accept all unary regular languages. 2) A language which can’t be accepted by 1-way deterministic 2-head finite state automaton (1DFA((2)) can be accepted by 1QFA(2) with bounded error. 3) 1QFA(2) is more powerful than 1-way reversible 2-head finite state automaton (1RMFA(2)) with respect to recognition of language.
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Abstract. We prove that several variants of the quantum finite automaton (QFA) model are strictly superior to their probabilistic counterparts, in terms of both language recognition power and succinctness, in the onesided unbounded error setting. This is the first case where one-way QFA models have been shown to outperform the corresponding probabilistic automata in both these respects. We give a characterization of the class of languages recognized by these QFA’s with cutpoint 0, demonstrating that it is equal to the class of exclusive stochastic languages. We prove several closure properties of the related classes. 1
Quantum finite automata were introduced by C.Moore, J.P. Crutchfield, and by A.Kondacs and J.Watrous. This notion is not a generalization of the deterministic finite automata. Moreover, it was proved that not all regular languages can be recognized by quantum finite automata. A.Ambainis and R.Freivalds proved that for some languages quantum finite automata may be exponentially more concise rather than both deterministic and probabilistic finite automata. In this paper we introduce the notion of quantum finite multitape automata and prove that there is a language recognized by a quantum finite automaton but not by a deterministic or probabilistic finite automata. This is the first result on a problem which can be solved by a quantum computer but not by a deterministic or probabilistic computer. Additionally we discover unexpected probabilistic automata recognizing complicated languages.